Beans for Dinner
by CastleRock
Summary: In the story Secret Window, Secret Garden from the SK book Four Past Midnight, John Shooter comes to Mort Rainey, and accuses Rainey of stealing a story idea. Beans for Dinner is my version of the story in dispute. The story is complete- please R&R.
1. The Robin

Ernest Mollier looked out the large window at his wife's wide bottom waving in the air. He sighed. Like always, she was working in her garden, tending to her precious bean plants. She shifted her enormous mass. At the current moment, she was bulging out of a T-shirt and a pair of shorts entirely too small for a woman of her stature. It was hot outside, but otherwise it was a beautiful day. In the woods behind their house, the honeysuckle was in bloom, and the air was choked with their scent. No sounds were to be heard but the occasional chirps of birds and the occasional small grunts of exertion from his wife. She was oblivious to the honeysuckle, and to the sun beating down. She continued to pull weeds from around the plants, cooing softly to them. He hated those bean plants. She spent more time with them than she did with him, he thought bitterly. It had been that way ever since they had married.  
  
Ernest still wasn't sure exactly why he had married her. She chose to keep the name Helga Cook when she married, informing Ernest that this was what independent, working women did in the twenty-first century. Not that she worked. Instead, she stayed home to "do the housework". Soon after they had married, she had decided that "housework" consisted of tending to the garden. Although her last name was Cook, her idea of cooking was putting a frozen dinner in the microwave and pressing the right buttons. And Beans. Three times a week, she would make a pot of beans, nothing else, just beans, and the next day, she would perfume the house with their memory. Ernest did all the housework. He also did whatever she told him to do. She had established very early in the marriage who was in charge. Once a champion wrestler in her high school, she would not hesitate to resolve conflicts physically. And she always won. She towered over Ernest, weighing 278 pounds to his 143, standing a full foot taller. Ernest had stopped growing at the age of thirteen, and begun to bald at the age of fourteen. He wore thick glasses that tended to slip down on his nose. Sometimes, to assert his superiority, Helga would pick fights with him. She would scream insults at him, closing in on him while he backed away. She would back him into one of their bare walls (neither had family they were close to, and the two certainly never took pictures together). Ernest, feeling like a piece of trash in a trash compactor, would push at her, trying to give himself room to break away. Helga would use this as an excuse to begin attacking, saying she couldn't believe she had married a wife-beater. She would scream that he shouldn't resort to violence when he couldn't resolve a conflict. As she beat him, she would yell that she wasn't going to submit to his violent ways.  
  
Ernest sighed again and plopped down on the couch. He picked up the remote and dejectedly turned on the television. He was supposed to be cleaning the hardwood floors, but he had just dusted the shelves and wanted a break. A couple of years ago, at Helga's insistence, he had bought a satellite system and installed it. She had then proceeded to block all 978 channels except for those special privileged two, the gardening channel, and the professional wrestling channel. As Ernest sat, slumped on the couch, flipping back and forth between these two channels, a thought flickered through his mind.  
  
(kill her)  
  
He saw bolt upright. What was he thinking? Where had that come from? He tried to concentrate on the woman proudly displaying a trowel. How could he be thinking such things about his wife, the woman he was supposed to love? Not that she loved him at all. He knew that she only married him so she could avoid ever having to actually work. Although he was not a rich man, both of Ernest's parents had passed away, and he was pretty well off. Helga had seen that. And Ernest, not exactly a lady's man, had been so surprised at her romantic interest that he had convinced himself that he could help her change. He had even signed the prenuptial agreement, which would rob him of everything if he wanted to leave her. She didn't need him anymore. She would get the money anyway. And she knew it.  
  
(kill her)  
  
There it was again, that horrible thought deep inside his mind! He was married to her, he had said his vows  
  
(till death do us part)  
  
on that horrible day, and he should remember that. Did she remember? Would she even notice if he was gone? She would still have his money, she would still have her bean plants. The bean plants! How their life would be different without the bean plants! Why did she have to spend every waking moment out there with the plants? She wasn't married to him, she was married to those plants! Suddenly,  
  
(KILL HER)  
  
he looked up, and realized that while he had been thinking, he had risen from the couch and walked to the bedroom closet. He looked as the remote, still in his hand, then with the other hand, reached to the top shelf and found a grip on the gun they kept hidden there. He went back to the couch.  
  
He wanted revenge. He wanted revenge for all the beatings. He wanted revenge for all the hours she spent bending over those bean plants instead of being inside, tending to her husband. He wanted revenge because he had been so damn stupid. He remembered reading "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe in eighth grade. Montressor, exacting revenge on Fortunato. Montressor had laid out the principals of revenge. If you committed a crime, you must not be caught, or it wasn't worth it. And the avenger must make himself felt.  
  
(KILL HER!!)  
  
But could he?!? Could he kill her? A man couldn't just get away with murder these days. He wouldn't go to jail because of her. No, she'd laugh at him, mock him from her grave  
  
(you never were good at anything, were you ernest you worthless bag of garbage)  
  
just like she did in life. But who would notice if she dropped of the face of the earth? She wasn't exactly a social butterfly. She spent so much time with her plants, her plants, her plants that came above everything else.  
  
(KILL HER, KILL HER, KILL THE BITCH!!)  
  
Helga stomped in. "Ernest, you lazy, useless slob! I told you to have those floors cleaned!"  
  
The robin was pecking the ground, looking for food, when it heard a loud noise and a scream. Startled, it flew up to the safety of the branches of a nearby tree. It watched as a small, thin figure labored, dragging a small mountain outside of a house. The small figure went back inside, muttering, "Well, now we'll have to clean those floors, won't we?" The robin stayed where it was, munching on an insect that had unwittingly wandered too close. A bit later, the figure came outside and bent over a patch of plants. Very slowly and carefully, it dug up the plants and set them to the side. Then it got a tool and started making a deep hole. The robin, having exhausted its current supply of nourishment, went closer to see if the strange animal's exertions would produce any food. It could hear it making sounds: "How about this, Montressor? How is this for revenge? Burying her in her own garden! I'll bet she feels this!" Then it started to laugh, a high pitched giggle. There was something in that laugh, something animal, something wild. The robin decided it wasn't worth the food, and took off into the sky, heading for the heavens. 


	2. The Police

Police officers Marley and Sedgewick drove their dented car down the long driveway. "What are we doing out here, anyway?" Marley asked.  
  
"We're investigating a missing person," his partner answered. "It shouldn't take too long."  
  
The two were silent as they pulled up to the house and got out of the car. The house was surrounded by tall trees that seemed to lean into the yard. Marley was struck with a feeling of isolation. When he looked down the driveway, he could only see a turn in the drive, leading to more trees. Sedgewick slammed his drawer, and the feeling passed. "C'mon," Marley muttered. "Let's get this over with."  
  
When they rang the doorbell a scrawny short man with glasses opened the door. Marley decided he had probably never seen the inside of a weightroom. The man invited them to come inside and sit in the kitchen. He explained to them rather sheepishly that his dear wife had mysteriously disappeared one day. He told them that she had been talking for sometime about being unhappy in their marriage. The two officers nodded their heads, took superficial notes, and tried not to look bored. When Mr. Ernest Mollier had finished talking, he invited them to stay for dinner. The two officers, who both lived a distance away and had no one to get home to, accepted graciously. "What's for dinner?" Sedgewick asked.  
  
"Oh, beans," Ernest replied. "I have a garden of my own, and I grow beans in it. I have them for dinner most every night." He took one of the many Tupperware containers out of the fridge and warmed up a batch of beans, adding minimal spices.  
  
After they had been eating for a while, Marley looked up from his dish and said to Ernest, "These are really good." Sedgewick, his mouth full, nodded emphatically in agreement.  
  
"Why, thank you," Ernest said, his smile full of pride. "It must be the fertilizer." 


End file.
